Faith Nyasuguta
In a disturbing reflection of global environmental injustice, mountains of discarded clothing from the UK’s fast fashion industry are being dumped in Ghana’s protected wetlands, threatening both people and wildlife. An investigation by Unearthed, working with Greenpeace Africa, exposes how unwanted clothes from brands like M&S, Zara, Primark, and Asda’s George are ending up in what should be safe havens for endangered sea turtles and migratory birds.
The clothing waste, shipped under the guise of “donations” or resale, is swamping Ghana’s capital, Accra, and rapidly spilling into conservation zones like the Densu Delta – a Ramsar-designated wetland of international importance. This once-pristine ecosystem now resembles a textile graveyard, with synthetic fabrics entangled in mangroves, clogging lagoons and littering the shores.
Locals are left grappling with the mess. Fishermen complain that their nets are now just as likely to catch shredded T-shirts and polyester trousers as fish. “Before, you could drink from the river,” said Seth Tetteh, a resident who has lived near the delta for seven years. “Now the water is black. When you fish, you pull in clothes and trash.”
Despite their green pledges and recycling rhetoric, UK brands continue to saturate Africa with low-quality, disposable fashion. Items bearing labels from Next, H&M, Zara and Primark were found in multiple dump sites, including one directly on the banks of the river that feeds into the Densu wetlands. These dumps – often unregulated and unlined – leach chemicals into water sources, attract swarms of mosquitoes and have decimated local wildlife.
Where there were once alligators, birds, and rabbits, there are now heaps of rotting fabric. “It used to be wild here,” said Ibrahim Sadiq, a 19-year-old student. “Now the mosquitoes are unbearable, and the smell is very bad.”
At the centre of this crisis is Kantamanto Market, one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing hubs. Every week, it receives over 1,000 tonnes of used clothing, primarily from the UK and Europe. The promise is resale – the reality is waste. “In the past, we had good clothes to sell,” said trader Mercy Asantewa, “but these days, the bales are full of poorly made garments. They fall apart when we open them. We can’t sell them.”
With only one engineered landfill in the region – and another still under construction – 100 tonnes of clothing waste exit Kantamanto daily, according to Accra’s waste management chief, Solomon Noi. Of that, only 30 tonnes are collected and processed. The remaining 70 tonnes? They flood drains, beaches, lagoons and now wetlands.
The environmental consequences are severe but so are the political and ethical ones. Ghana has become the world’s dumping ground – a country forced to manage waste it didn’t create, with ecosystems and communities paying the price. It receives more secondhand clothing than any other country, thanks in part to the UK’s waste strategy: of the 1.5 million tonnes of textiles discarded each year, more than 420,000 tonnes are exported, largely to Africa.
Companies deny direct involvement. M&S, for instance, claims it doesn’t send clothes to Ghana and instead promotes in-store recycling with partners like Oxfam. Primark insists it doesn’t authorise resale or disposal of takeback clothes in Africa, calling for industry-wide cooperation. George at Asda says it hasn’t increased production or seasonal output in ten years and maintains a zero-waste policy. All the brands say they support an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework – a policy that would legally hold them accountable for their products’ full life cycle.
But in Ghana, the damage is already done.
Footage from the Akkaway dump, a newly opened site in the Densu Delta wetlands, shows large mounds of clothing waste sitting on bare earth – no protective lining, no leachate treatment systems, no barriers against contamination. It’s a direct violation of Ghana’s own environmental policy, as well as its commitments under the Ramsar Convention. Yet local officials admit the Weija Gbawe Municipal Assembly oversees the site, raising questions about whether enforcement and corruption are part of the deeper rot.
Meanwhile, the people who rely on the wetlands for fishing, farming and even drinking water are left with fewer options and growing resentment. Many, like Mercy and Seth, are calling for international regulation. In 2023, a delegation of Ghanaian traders travelled to Brussels to urge the EU to adopt EPR laws. The UK’s Textile Recyclers Association is also pushing the British government to take responsibility.
But progress is slow – and fashion brands, while full of promises, continue to profit from the unchecked export of their waste.
Fast fashion’s dark underbelly isn’t just environmental – it’s exploitative. Africa is being forced to manage the consequences of a Western addiction to cheap, trendy clothing. The continent’s ecosystems, health and dignity are sacrificed so that brands can keep churning out garments no one really needs.
This is not “recycling.” It’s environmental neocolonialism – a system where the Global North consumes and disposes and the Global South pays the price.
Until laws change and brands are forced to clean up their mess, the mountains of textile waste in Ghana’s wetlands will only grow – as symbols of greed, inequality and environmental betrayal.
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